A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

with that...'
    Kalam nodded. 'The demon takes that person's soul... and makes the exchange. Freedom.'
    'Not just people, either!' Ebron hissed. 'Animals, birds – insects! Anything!'
    'No, I think it will have to be big – bigger than a bird or insect. And when it does escape—'
    'It'll come looking for you,' the mage whispered. He suddenly wheeled to Cord. 'We have to get out of here. Now! Better still—'
    'Aye,' Kalam growled, 'get as far away from me as you can. Listen – the Empress has sent her new Adjunct, with an army — there will be a battle, in Raraku. The Adjunct has little more than recruits. She could do with your company, even as beaten up as it is—'
    'They march from Aren?'
    Kalam nodded. 'And have likely already started. That gives you maybe a month ... of staying alive and out of trouble—'
    'We can manage,' Cord grated.
    Kalam glanced over at Sinn. 'Be careful, lass.'
    'I will. I think I'll miss you, Kalam.'
    The assassin spoke to Cord. 'Leave me my supplies. I will rest here a while longer. So we don't cross paths, I will be heading due west from here, skirting the north edge of the Whirlwind ... for a time. Eventually, I will
try to breach it, and make my way into Raraku itself.'
    'Lady's luck to you,' Cord replied, then he gestured. 'Everyone else, let's go.' At the stairway, the sergeant glanced back at the assassin. 'That demon ... did it get the captain and the lieutenant, do you think?'
    'No. It said otherwise.'
    'It spoke to you?'
    'In my mind, aye. But it was a short conversation.'
    Cord grinned. 'Something tells me, with you, they're all short.'
    A moment later and Kalam was alone, still racked with waves of uncontrollable shivering. Thankfully, the soldiers had left a couple of torches. It was too bad, he reflected, that the azalan demon had vanished. Seriously too bad.
     
    It was dusk when the assassin emerged from the narrow fissure in the rock, opposite the cliff, that was the monastery's secret escape route. The timing was anything but pleasant. The demon might already be free, might already be hunting him – in whatever form fate had gifted it. The night ahead did not promise to be agreeable.
    The signs of the company's egress were evident on the dusty ground in front of the fissure, and Kalam noted that they had set off southward, preceding him by four or more hours. Satisfied, he shouldered his pack and, skirting the outcropping that was the fortress, headed west.
    Wild bhok'arala kept pace with him for a time, scampering along the rocks and voicing their strangely mournful hooting calls as night gathered. Stars appeared overhead through a blurry film of dust, dulling the desert's ambient silver glow to something more like smudged iron. Kalam made his way slowly, avoiding rises where he would be visible along a skyline.
    He froze at a distant scream to the north. An enkar'al. Rare, but mundane enough. Unless the damned thing recently landed to drink from a pool of bloody water. The bhok'arala had scattered at that cry, and were nowhere to be seen.
There was no wind that Kalam could detect, but he knew that sound carried far on nights like these, and, worse, the huge winged reptiles could detect motion from high above ... and the assassin would make a good meal.
    Cursing to himself, Kalam faced south, to where the Whirlwind's solid wall of whirling sand rose, three and a half, maybe four thousand paces distant. He tightened the straps of his pack, then gingerly reached for his knives. The effects of the salve were fading, twin throbbing pulses of pain slowly rising. He had donned his fingerless gloves and gauntlets – risking the danger of infection – but even these barriers did little to lessen the searing pain as he closed his hands on the weapons and tugged them loose.
    Then he set off down the slope, moving as quickly as he dared. A hundred heartbeats later he reached the blistered pan of Raraku's basin. The Whirlwind was a muted roar ahead, steadily drawing a flow of cool air towards it. He fixed his gaze on that distant, murky wall, then began jogging.
    Five hundred paces. The pack's straps were abraiding the telaba on his shoulders, wearing through to the lightweight chain beneath. His supplies were slowing him down, but without them, he knew, he was as good as dead here in Raraku. He listened to his breathing grow harsher.
    A thousand paces. Blisters had broken on his palms, soaking the insides of his gauntlets, making the grips of the long-knives slippery,